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Tuesday, January 16, 2007

Goals for Week of Jan 15th

I tried to post this yesterday, but Blogger wasn't interested in what I had to say. Hopefully, you are. I've had an itch for several weeks that must get scratched this week. It's Grid 3, a happy accident that occurred while choosing squares for Grid 2. Perhaps you recognize that background fabric. I painted that back in May (see this post), and commented that while I liked the texture created, I wasn't sure the color combination was the best. It got hung in the closet with the rest of the work from that day, and there was even the thought that it might have to have more paint applied for me to stomach it.

The background for Grid 2 was another painted piece I was less than happy with. Covering it with squares was my solution to make it usable. I cut several sets of squares from different fabrics, and the ones you see here were the rejects. No problem - I'm doing a grid series, so they would just be incorporated into the next trial piece. But what to use for a background? Well, as you may have guessed, staring at the colors reminded me of that painted piece, so I pulled it out to see if the two would actually work. I think they do. And instead of staying with my up and down grid, I tried turning it on point since the background fabric was large enough to accommodate that. I plan to keep the grid lines of couched thread or decorative stitching running vertically and horizontally, though. But quilting stitches will parallel the sides of the squares, and quilting will be quite heavy.

But I didn't have time to work on it before moving, so it was carefully packed away. When I unearthed it a few weeks ago looking for thread, I found I was very anxious to finish it up. But of course, I also wanted to finish Grid 2 and the pinwheel quilt first, so I've been trying to be patient. Now that those two quilts are down to binding, it's Grid 3's turn. If I continue with my getting up on time and putting the minimum hours in, that should be no problem.I also have an itch to process a fairly large stack of commercial fabric, mostly fat quarters, that got stuffed into a trunk for the move. Again, it was unearthing them while searching for something else that got me antsy about it. I like to wash all my fabric before storing it away, and here were perfectly good options mixed in with a bunch of reproductions that I don't anticipate using very soon, that were out of sight out of mind. There was even a wonderful navy batik I'd forgotten about. I want to reorganize those reproductions so that they do not have such a prominent place in the studio. They should be in bins in the closet, not my hand-dyes and painted pieces. This feels like a good week to get started on that. So here are the week's goals:

About Me

I'm a native Idahoan who has finally returned home after many years of bouncing around the U.S. My "Idaho Beauty" trademark comes from a traditional quilt block name, appropriate for a homesick Idahoan in love with all aspects of quilting.
In another life there were motorcycles. Now I content myself with following motorcycle roadracing. When that abates for the winter, I switch to figure skating. I've never had a pair of skates on, but I often dreamed up elaborate programs in my mind. Ah youth...
I've always read, all kinds of things, fiction and non-fiction. I caught the bug for journaling from a HS English teacher, and the love of personal correspondence from my mother.
I've almost always had a dog. I'm currently without, but the last version was a smallish black lab with an attitude big enough to make up for her size. There was some confusion about who was the master in this house. She'll be hard to replace.
I appear to have a calling to create art, but I sometimes flounder in my quest. Thus I blog.